Category: Galapagos 2012

All right, they were hammerhead sharks. Nothing to worry about!

Ecuador Trip: Day 17

Galapagos Cruise: Day 12

Finally, my right eye isn’t feeling so dry from my touch-up laser eye surgery in mid-January that I can return to my Galapagos travel posts before, you know, an entire year passes since the trip.

Repeat after me: Cindy is not a procrastinator; her eyes just suck.

I last left our Galapagos holiday with a ditty about Pitt Point and Witch Hill. On the morning of Day 12 of our cruise, we had the opportunity to visit the Breeding Center “Galapaguera” Cerro Colorado on San Cristobal Island. This was a good visit, but also a bit of a sad one, because four members of our party were leaving and four new victims were coming on board. While we were always happy to have new victims, we had come to quite enjoy the company of the four that left and we look forward to possibly seeing the couple who went by the fake names of “Dick and Jane” sometime again in our lives (“Dick” and “Jane”, if you’re reading this, don’t you think it’s time you revealed your real identities?).

San Cristobal was easily the most populated harbor we visited. When we were on the back side of Isabela Island during Week 1, an entire day would pass without us seeing another boat. Not so with San Cristobal. Here’s a view looking back at the harbor after we had disembarked for our visit to see the Giant Tortoises:

If you look in the middle of the picture up above, waaaaaaaaay at the back, sitting on the horizon, I believe that’s our catamaran, The Cormorant. Or maybe it’s someone else’s catamaran, but I think it was ours. By the way, while we were docked in the harbor, apparently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie visited the Galapagos and got engaged. Please don’t rely on me for this late-breaking news. I’m sure it was reported elsewhere in the universe. They haven’t invited me to the wedding, though, which I think is rather gauche, considering I was practically at their sides when the engagement occurred. But whatever.

Now, being the clever photographer that I am, I turned around and captured a shot of San Cristobal itself. Isn’t it lovely?

At a later point during our cruise, we learned that our guide, Harry Jimenez, along with his wife, owns and runs a boutique hotel on San Cristobal called the Eco-Lodge. So if you’re looking to stay on San Cristobal during an island-hopping excursion, rather than being on a cruise for 1 or 2 weeks, check out Harry’s hotel and the great reviews it’s getting on Trip Advisor. He also runs 1-, 2- and 3-day trips/excursions with his boat, the Blue Attraction, from the hotel. Harry’s always up to something and always expanding his business. You can check out what he’s offering for excursions right now and bookmark his site for future use. I would totally recommend Harry as a guide. And he didn’t pay me to say that. No, “Dick and Jane” did. (Okay, I did it for free. I’m nice like that).

To give you an idea of the size of the Giant Tortoises at the Breeding Center on San Cristobal, here is one beside an anonymous gentleman who paid me to put his picture on the Internet. I won’t say how he paid me, because that’s just rude. (Okay, he bought me some tequila). (Beer won’t work in these cases):

Remember, you’re not supposed to touch the animals in the Galapagos. And if they try to touch you (as in they start to chase you, and believe me these guys can motor when they want to), then you’re supposed to get away, but don’t run too fast, instead do a sort of slo-mo rapid gait, because you don’t want to alarm them. In other words, pretend you’re a cartoon character with your legs whipping beneath you but you’re not really going that far, and you’ll be fine.

After our visit and after saying goodbye to “Dick and Jane,” we headed back to the Cormorant. We passed some sea lions along the way. This fellow below I’m pretty sure is one of those animatronic thingies they use at Disneyland. Because, while I thought this photo (featuring My Liege) was fun and unique, I have since discovered dozens of similar photos on the web. So either this sea lion wasn’t real (and was not harmed during the taking of this photo), or he comes from a very large family and they take turns lounging on the bench:

En route (via the pangas) back to The Cormorant, we encountered several of this fellow’s relatives, waiting their turn to swim in and sun on the bench. But in the meantime…

Our afternoon consisted of a fantastic snorkeling day at Kicker Rock. The water wasn’t super clear, but we did see Rays and Hammerhead sharks and several Tortuga (sea turtles), which I adore. Here is a view of Kicker Rock where we didn’t snorkel (just to give you perspective):

The Cormorant took us alllllll around Kicker Rock, and I got several beautiful shots. See the the pointy bit sticking up on the right? There’s a passage between that sticky-up rock and the rest of the island, and we snorkeled around the entire sticky-up rock. Here’s a photo from later in the evening that shows the splitting of the island. The pointy rock is now on the left:

Look at that happy guy! Because he’s married to me!

Kicker Rock is much taller than it appears in this photo. The picture at this Wikipedia link offers a better persective, but doesn’t feature My Liege.

By the way, if you visit that Wikipedia page and the one about San Cristobal Island, you’ll discover that San Cristobal is the easternmost island in the Galapagos, also goes by the name Chatham, and is one of the oldest islands, geologically speaking, in the Galapagos. There’s an airport on San Cristobal, which is how “Dick and Jane” managed to escape before we found out they were really Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 in disguise, and which is how our new victims, who joined us for the afternoon of snorkeling, came to be on-board.

Next stop: Espanola Island, which is truly a marvel, with all the lovely Waved Albatrosses that we were incredibly lucky to see. Because, you see, they only return to Espanola once a year, and we just happened to be there (read that as I was incredibly brilliant to ensure we were there) when they did.

Ecuador Trip: Day 16
 
Galapagos Cruise: Day 11

If you’ve been following my Galapagos posts, by now you should be getting a sense of just how much activity gets packed into one day. It wasn’t enough that we went swimming in the morning, visited amazing caves, went snorkeling (or didn’t go, depending on one’s nausea issues) on Day 16, no, we had to top it off in the afternoon with a steep hike.

If lounging around on the sundeck all day is your idea of a good time, don’t visit the Galapagos. Or, you could visit and stay back on the boat while your fellow travelers go off exploring. But where’s the fun in that?

Swimming at Witch Hill last post (link if you’re too lazy to scroll down), we saw beautiful white beaches. In the afternoon, we visited Pitt Point, which is the northernmost point of San Cristobal. The beaches at Pitt Point are a beautiful, squish-between-your-toes brown:

Harry informed us that we were going to hike up to the top of this little hill, from where we would get a great view of the ocean.

My Liege, beginning the ascent:

By this time it began to occur to me that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t going to gain weight on this trip. That maybe, just maybe, I would lose a couple of pounds. Another bonus of the Galapagos! You can eat like a pig and be assured you are going to exercise, swim, and sweat it all off.

The rock formations were really quite spectacular, and I’d have to say that was the big difference between Week 1 and 2 of our cruise. I still couldn’t choose which of the two weeks I would recommend if you only had one week to spare, because they are so incredibly different. But if you’re into geology, probably our Week 2 (the Southern and Central islands) would be the week to choose. But then you’d miss the beauty of the Northern Islands and the wildness of Fernandina and Isabela. It’s really an impossible choice, but if choose you must, here’s a nice breakdown of the various islands.)

If I were the accommodating sort, I might also choose this moment to plug our naturalist guide’s blog. It’s filled with tons of information about the Galapagos. Check out the swimming with sea lions video in this post!

Okay, that was an aside. Where was I?

Ah, yes, Pitt Point.

View of The Cormorant from where I almost lost my hat:

Wondering what sort of shoes to take on a Galapagos cruise? Good hiking runners and a pair of Keens or similar:

For Pete’s sake, whose dangling shoelaces are those? Who can’t be bothered to tuck in her shoelaces like everyone else?

Beats me.

That evening, we enjoyed a very social time, because the following day we would lose two of the “couples” from Week 2, a mother/daughter pair and a couple who chose to only identify themselves as “Dick and Jane” (yeah, like we believed those were really your names!). Both pairs of travelers had embarked on the Cormorant along with the other Week 2 passengers. However, they were on a 4-day/3-night cruise (which one could combine with a Fernandina/Isabela week-long cruise, if one so chose).

But the good news…we would once more get fresh victims!

I am keeping good on my New Year’s Resolutions and returning to the Galapagos posts! The day this post appears, I’m having touch-up laser eye surgery in my right eye, the distance eye. The left eye turned out wonderbar last year, but the right eye, she is stubborn. So I wrote this post ahead of time, and, if you’re lucky, I wrote the next post ahead of time, too. So even if I can’t see in a few days, hopefully YOU will be able to read another lovely Galapagos post.

Here’s the last post, written way back in November (Cindy’s bad!). If you’re into self-torture, or you’re super interested in visiting the Galapagos yourself, here’s the first post of our trip, which occurred back in April/May of 2012. Hey, I didn’t procrastinate. I had things to do. Like eat salt ‘n vinegar chips.

Ecuador Trip: Day 16
 
Galapagos Cruise: Day 11

Day 15 found us on Santa Fe Island. For days 16 and 17 (days 11 and 12 of the cruise), the Cormorant itinerary focused on San Cristobal Island and the gorgeous Kicker Rock. Here’s a view of Kicker Rock as we passed it on the way to Witch Hill. I swear, I could go back to the Galapagos again just to catch another view of this geological marvel.

At Witch Hill, we frolicked in the water, doing handstands (not me, but another of our party), trying to stand on our husband’s shoulders (have I ever mentioned my lousy sense of balance?) and talking to other travelers on the beach. In fact, we thought this was the entire reason we had come to Witch Hill. To take pictures of Kicker Rock in the distance, frolic in the water, and capture guys like this on film:

You’d think photographing iguanas would get tiring, but it doesn’t.

Here’s a view from the beach of Witch Hill, which our guide told us was also called “Witch’s Hat,” but wouldn’t tell us why:

Harry said we would find out more about Witch Hill on our return to the Cormorant. So, after enjoying one of the best swimming days on the cruise (during which we met a couple from our home province who knew “of” my BFF—small world), we cobbled into the two pangas and headed back to the boat. The pangas took us very close to Witch Hill:

I almost shouldn’t explain what happened next, because, if you go to Witch Hill, I’m ruining the surprise. If you don’t want the surprise ruined, stop reading this post right now. Go and buy one of my books or something. (How crass. I swear, it wasn’t me who typed that. It was the Ghost of Witch Hill!)

Can’t tear yourself away, huh? Just gotta know more about Witch Hill? Well, my photography skills might disappoint. Okay…I don’t think it’s MY photography skills in particular that will disappoint, because I don’t remember (dum-de-dum) if I had my camera with me this morning. I thought all we were going to do was swim. Thank God other cruisers had their cameras, and I can bum one of their pictures. Note, I am only bumming a picture off the Group of Four.

The first cave we floated into was this one:

I don’t have a photo of The Cathedral, which was the second cave we visited, but it was even more awe-inspiring, if possible, than the cave above. The Cathedral cave featured a “ceiling,” and could best be viewed by reclining on the other passengers in the panga and staring straight up. You don’t want to see a picture of my thigh with a big bruise (no idea where I acquired it), my bathing suit cover-up and my hat as I’m lying flat on another passenger and she’s trying not to topple our guide into the water, do you? Of course not. Doesn’t sound very pleasant at all.

I would show you the photo, but it doesn’t picture the actual cathedral ceiling and it also shows the face of another passenger, not one of the Group of Four. I’m too lazy to email her and ask her permission to post it, so we’re stopping with the caves right here.

See, I don’t necessarily have to ruin surprises! All you need to know is that you DO want to go swimming at the beach near Witch Hill and you DO want your guide to take you into the caves afterward. You don’t want him to ruin the surprise by telling you about it first, either. Experiencing the surprise is half the fun.

So, we returned to the boat and then I had to make a big decision. If you went back and read Day 15, you’d know that my seasickness had returned. As much as I love snorkeling, it was time for me to take a day off and just lounge in the sun on the upper deck and wait for my seasickness patches to take effect again. I needed to decide, should I go snorkeling at some small rock I can’t remember the name of or wait until the next day, when I might be feeling better, and go snorkeling around Kicker Rock?

I asked Harry, our guide. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Harry, I feel like crap, and I need a day off of snorkeling before sea water starts leaking out my pores. Should I not snorkel today or not snorkel tomorrow? I’m thinking I should miss today.” (I mean, who would want to miss snorkeling at Kicker Rock?)

Harry: “Welllllllll, if you have to choose, remember, I can’t choose for you, but I might, maybe, if I were going to suggest a day to miss, which I wouldn’t suggest, because we just never know what we’re going to see or what visibility will be like until we get there, I might maybe, perhaps, on the off-chance, recommend that you miss today and don’t miss Kicker Rock.”

Me: “I kind of feel like you’re telling me to miss today.”

Harry: “I would never do such a thing. You should come both days.”

Me: “I might throw up in my snorkel mask.”

Harry: “All right, you are probably correct that you should miss today.”

Me: “And go instead tomorrow? I shouldn’t miss Kicker Rock, right?”

Harry: “No one should ever miss Kicker Rock.”

Me: “Will you promise me good visibility tomorrow?”

Harry: “I do not promise anything.”

Me: “Will you promise me sea turtles?”

Harry: “I can not promise sea turtles. I can not promise sea lions. I can not promise rays. I can not promise hammerhead sharks.”

Me: “Can you promise rock?”

Harry: “I can not promise anything.”

Me: “Can you promise ocean?”

Harry: “I can not promise annnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyything.”

Me: “Can you promise that you won’t promise anything?”

Harry: “No, not even that.”

That Harry, not promising the ocean!

Based on our conversation, I did not go snorkeling on Day 16. I would save myself for the following day, Kicker Rock, which, we were told, if visibility is good, is absolutely amazing snorkeling (you can almost feel the punch line coming, can’t you? But you have to wait for my Kicker Rock post).

Although I did not go snorkeling after swimming at the beaches near Witch Hill, I wanted to take pictures of my SIL and BIL getting ready. Alas, I was so groggy from seasickness (and someone had stolen my hat, which escaped my notice, even though it was on his head), that I totally forgot to get pictures of Harry and my relatives getting ready for the snorkel until I heard the panga driving away! Ack!

Luckily, I had my camera with me on deck. So I raced (without barfing) to the railing and snapped this photo of the lonely only panga heading off for what was supposed to be the second choice of snorkel days:

 

So of COURSE when the boat returns, my BIL and SIL had had the time of their lives! My husband had stayed back with me, and meanwhile they saw rays:

And they saw sea lions! Tons and tons of frolicking sea lions! Sob…

It was one of the best snorkel days of our entire two weeks on the cruise, I was told.

I swore never to miss another snorkel opportunity on the trip, and I didn’t.

I wish I could remember the name of the little island, but, alas, my nausea prevented me from writing it down (or looking it up right now).

All I can tell you is that you don’t want to miss Witch Hill. And you don’t want to miss snorkeling at the little nameless island afterward. No matter how soggy and full of sea water you are.

I promise you that.

Time for another Galapagos Post! I know, I made you wait. I’m bad.

Ecuador Trip: Day 15

Galapagos Cruise: Day 10

If you’re new to my Galapagos posts and you’re wondering why they’re titled 5 days ahead of the cruise, it’s because I like to continue how I begin (blame it on the Capricorn), and I began blogging about our cruise five days before the cruise began. As in, Day 1 was the day we flew to Ecuador. Therefore, Day 15 = Day 10 of the cruise.

I know, it’s complicated and I should be hung on some of that cacti on South Plaza Island for being confusing. But if that happened, I’d be hanging off cacti my entire life.

So we’ll just continue how we began.

The afternoon of April 30th took us to Santa Fe Island, which is also known as Barrington. It has a lovely little bay where large cruise ships can’t anchor. But catamarans with 16 passengers can. For me, this is another plus of going on a boat with a small number of passengers. Quite simply, your itinerary allows you to visit more sites. We were able to go kayaking from our anchorage point off Santa Fe. The Cormorant only has two kayaks, so two couples would go out, kayak around, then come back.

Over the two-week trip, I believe there were only two opportunities to use the kayaks. Indeed, I began to wonder why they were on-board. Both opportunities occurred during Week 2 of the cruise. I can’t remember where the other opportunity was, because I didn’t take advantage of it. Sorry about the lousy note-taking!

I’ve only gone kayaking one time before the Galapagos, during a group trip to Salt Spring Island in B.C. That was a long time ago, and the main thing I remember is that I was not very good at kayaking. Turned out a lot hadn’t changed between Salt Spring Island and Santa Fe! I’m still not good at it. I lost my hat. I forced my husband to turn back and rescue it before it drowned. He claimed he had to do all the work of rowing, or whatever you call it. Apparently, I was supposed to watch what he was doing and somehow, miraculously, then know what to do myself. Really, I’m just supposed to lounge in the back of the kayak like Cleopatra on a river barge. After all these years, you’d think my husband would realize this. So our kayaking trip, while fun…I prefer the snorkeling. No one’s relying on me. I can screw up to my heart’s content!

I have another excuse for my lousy kayaking skills, however. You see, the sea sickness that had plagued me at the beginning of our trip was returning. Knowing I get motion sickness, on the day we flew from Quito to the Galapagos, I began wearing this medicinal patch behind my ear. You wear one for three days behind one ear and then you wear the second one for three days behind the other ear. I had hoped that by the time I finished wearing the patch for 6 days, my sea sickness would subside. I was also nibbling ginger and wearing those acupuncture wrist bands, both of which were supposed to help. Once I went off the ear patch, however, it took a couple of days, but I grew progressively more woozy. The day we went kayaking, I wasn’t quite ready to go back on the patch. But a day later I had to miss a snorkeling opportunity because I felt so woozy. At this point, I was glad I’d brought along extra ear patches.

If you get seasick, do not count on “getting used to it.” I got “used to” the motion of the boat, to walking up and down the stairs to the sundeck, etc., as in I became more physically adept at these activities. But I could not give up my dependence on the patch. So take plenty!

One of the other passengers was doing far worse than moi, however. She was feeling so poorly that the Cormorant headed toward San Cristobal to get her something for her stomach. Along the way, we passed Kicker Rock, where we would snorkel in two more days. Kicker Rock is so beautiful! I must have taken a million pictures. Nothing but seeing it in real life can do it justice, but here’s a taste as we’re motoring past to get nausea medication for another guest:

In two days, we would be snorkeling around the smaller of the two humongous rocks. We snorkeled all around it. It was amazing.

I have a lot of views of Kicker Rock. You might be sick of it by the time we leave the vicinity. This was our first glimpse, we had several others, and I don’t think I could ever tire of the sight of Kicker Rock. That would be like getting sick of looking at the amazing beautiful lakes we have in my part of British Columbia. Just not gonna happen. Your mileage may vary.

Ecuador Trip: Day 15

Galapagos Cruise: Day 10

Enough dallying about on slice-of-life and writing stuff. It’s time for another Galapagos travel post. I know, you’ve missed them. I can tell by the cheers that pour from my computer speakers whenever a new post goes up.

So, okay, on Day 10 of our cruise, we made a morning stop at South Plaza Island, which is located off the east coast of Santa Cruz (one of the populated islands).

South Plaza is an island best told through pictures, without someone nattering in your ear about every single one. For example, you get to see…

The island is also pretty rocky. If you’re hankering to play Fred Flintstone, South Plaza Island is a good place to hang out.

Isn’t that a cute bit of molting skin?

I wouldn’t want to feel those claws wrapped around my throat on a cold, clammy night. Of course, I’d have to have a pretty skinny throat.

That’s it. Told ya, short and sweet. No needless nattering. Not a lot. Just enough or you’d think it wasn’t me writing this post.

There’s the rub. Is it? Is it REALLY me?